Suicide bombing kills three on heels of Palestinian deaths

Published: Sunday, February 17, 2002

Associated Press

KARNEI SHOMRON, West Bank (AP)  A suicide bomber blew himself up in a pizzeria in a shopping center crowded with Israeli teen-agers Saturday, killing himself and two others and wounding 27 people, six of them seriously.

The blast occurred in an open-air mall in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, marking the first time a settlement was targeted in such a bombing since they have been so heavily guarded.

The restaurant was gutted, with pieces of concrete and wires dangling from the ceiling. Blood, glass and debris covered the sidewalk. A children's coin-operated ride, a purple horse, stood unharmed amid the destruction.

In the northern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian rocket hit an Israeli army base, causing some damage but no injuries. In response, Israeli tanks advanced on the nearby Palestinian town of Beit Lahia, and Palestinian witnesses said they heard intense shooting.

The day's violence began earlier Saturday when four Palestinians were killed, three in a gunbattle with Israeli troops and one in a car explosion that Palestinians blamed on Israel. The Islamic militant group Hamas said it would retaliate for the blast, which killed a Hamas leader.

A radical PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, claimed responsibility for Saturday's mall explosion in a call to the Qatar-based satellite TV station Al Jazeera. The group identified the bomber as Sadek Abdel Hafeth, 18, from the West Bank town of Qalqilya.

However, the Israeli government held Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ultimately responsible.

Despite the violence, thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv to urge a pullout from the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli media estimated the crowd at 20,000, which would make it one of the largest peace rallies since violence resumed more than 16 months ago.

The mall blast went off shortly before 8 p.m. in the Jewish settlement of Karnei Shomron in the West Bank.

"I heard a large explosion ... and I saw everyone running away," said Rachel Cohen, owner of a flower shop near the pizza restaurant. Cohen said her husband, who uses a wheelchair and couldn't flee the scene, was injured in the blast.

Karnei Shomron resident Cy Polski, originally from Staten Island in New York, said the mall was crowded with teen-agers at the time of the blast.

"You could call it the neighborhood hangout. It's sickening. I saw blood spattered on the pavement as far back as the swimming pool, about 150 meters away," said Polski.

Police said three people  an Israeli woman, a youngster and the apparent assailant  were killed in the blast. Twenty-seven people were wounded, including six who are in serious condition.

Since September 2000, Pales-tinian militants have carried out two deadly shooting attacks in the Jewish settlements that dot the West Bank and Gaza, areas Palestinians claim for their would-be state.

Gideon Meir, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, said Israel would retaliate by hunting down Palestinian militants.

"If we have to kill them, we'll kill them," Meir said.

"Wherever we can get them, we will get them."

Israel has killed dozens of Palestinian militants accused of involvement in killings of Israelis  and a number of bystanders  in targeted attacks in the past 16 months.

On Saturday, a leader of the Hamas military wing, Nazih Abu Sabaa, was killed in the West Bank town of Jenin. Palestinian security officials said Abu Sabaa had left a school where he teaches and was walking near a parked car when the vehicle exploded. A 2-year-old Palestinian boy was slightly injured.

The car had been wired with explosives that were planted by Israel, the Palestinian officials said. The Israeli army refused to comment on the explosion but military officials said that Abu Sabaa had been involved in three suicide attacks since fighting began 16 months ago and was planning further assaults.

In central Gaza, three Palestinians were killed Saturday in a gunbattle with Israeli forces in the Boureij refugee camp.

The Israeli incursion into the camp was in response to a bomb attack on an Israeli tank on Thursday in which three Israeli soldiers were killed.

Also Saturday, Palestinians fired a homemade Qassam-2 rocket from Gaza into Israel. The rocket landed in an open area and caused no injuries.

At the Tel Aviv rally, Sari Nusseibeh, the PLO representative in Jerusalem, urged a resumption of peace talks with Arafat.

"Is the question what to talk about? ... There's no other answer: We talk about two states for two peoples," he told the crowd, speaking Hebrew. Such public appearances in Israel are extremely rare, and Nusseibeh's underscored his emerging role as an important advocate for resuming peace talks.